Time Warner Wins Harry Potter Rights

Sat., Dec. 23, 2000 12:00 PM PST by Emily Farache

Sorry, Harry Potter-squatters, not even the Ministry of Magic can help you now: The kid wizard belongs to Time Warner.

So decreed the United Nations' World Intellectual Property Organization, which specified the media behemoth as the sole proprietor to more than 100 Potter-related domain names.

The ruling Thursday gives Time Warner Entertainment exclusive rights to names like www.harrypotterinhollywood.com, www.harrypottersmovie.com and www.harrypotterfilm.org, all of which were registered by HarperStephens, of Agoura Hills, California.

The three-member UN panel ordered HarperStephens to immediately relinquish control over the names, most of which were registered after Time Warner announced it would make the first Harry Potter book into a film.

The four books about Harry and his friends at the Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft have been an international hit with children and adults. The fourth book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, has had the largest initial print run ever, selling millions of copies. (Author J.K. Rowling is currently working on the fifth book in the series, which is planned to continue for a total of seven.)

The panel heard from Time Warner reps, who said because the company purchased the marketing rights to the series, HarperStephens was guilty of cybersquatting. Cybersquatting is when established company or brand names are registered as Web domain names for the sole purpose of selling the names back to the companies.

"It is difficult to discern any motive other than that of preventing the owner of the mark from reflecting the mark in a corresponding domain name," the UN decision read. "The Panel believes that the registration of over 100 such domain names is sufficient to constitute a pattern of conduct."

The UN system, which started last year, allows those who think they have the right to a domain name to get it back without fighting a costly legal battle.

Stars like Julia Roberts, Madonna and Tina Turner have successfully brought cases to the WIPO.

"This decision is consistent with recent cybersquatting victories by Madonna and Julia Roberts" says Alan Fisch, an Internet attorney with Howrey Simon Arnold & White in Washington, D.C.

For this ruling, the panel said it took special care with the Harry Potter case because "stories have circulated that the inspiration for the Internet was the Owl Post system employed by wizards and students of wizardry in the Wizarding World."

"The system is often referred to as 'The Way of the Wizarding World' (sometimes abbreviated in treatises of magic as the three w's or www), and it is indeed the warp and woof of all wizard-to-wizard communication," it added, with nary a chuckle or a wink of a wand.

The film Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, directed by Chris Columbus and being shot in Britain, is due November 16.

The panel's order to transfer all of the domain names to Time Warner may be appealed within 10 days, but Fisch says a successful appeal is unlikely. "I place the probability of an appeal by HarperStephens near zero in light of their arbitration proceeding decision not to contest the Time Warner allegations."